1984 in the making?

[Chmera]

Recently, in case no other people here watch the news, there has been 'talking' CCTV cameras installed in Middlesborough, England - uncomfortably close to home for me. The cameras are manned from a main room, with police officers watching your every move, 24/7... one toe over the line, however, and they can tell you to stop this time. Tiny offences like dropping a gum wrapper and even just cycling in a pedestianized zone, no matter how safely or sensibly, are worthy of public humiliation.

Read the Daily Mail article for more, and Government jargon attempting to say it's the right thing to do.

"This isn't like Big Brother. This is Big Brother."

[The Doctor]

Would it have gotten this far if we all weren't behaving like spoiled prats who think we're above the law?

[Mr. K]

I'm happy I'm in the US for once.

But really, this is overkill.  They can yell at you for those little things in order to make you look worse that you are.  People will laugh at you.

It's really an invasion of privacy.  However, as long as they don't get to installing them in homes, I will survive.

[Timballisto]

Althouhg I'm in the US, it does affect me simply by existing.  It reminds me of this program they have in programming.  It can turn off your monitor, keyboard, or mouse whenever the teacher wants it to, and the teacher can take over your computer with it and do anything  >>:E  THE PROGRAM NEEDS TO BE BURRRRRRRRRRRNED.

[Chmera]

*shudders*

[Mr. K]

NetOp?

We've got that at our school.  Annoying as hell, especially when a message from the teacher appears on screen.

[Andi]

Ah, we also had such a programm in school. That was geat. ^^ 2 minutes after booting the teacher was really angry with me because I removed it already. xD

As for the cameras: I don't like the way the government trys to "controll" us. WE, the citizans, live in the cities and WE decide what's good for us and what isn't. And if we decide such cameras are not good there are not good. No matter how many "spoiled prats" there are on the streets.
Ok on stations or crowded public places where you're in danger by terrorist attacks, but in regular cities? Yelling after you to take the finger out of your nose? What's this all leading to?

One day it will all be like City 17 from HL2. -_- "Go ahead! There's nothing to see!"

[Mr. K]

"STOP BITING YOUR FINGERNAILS, IMBECILE!"

Meh.  I'll live as long as they keep this crap out of our houses.  But how much longer do we have...?

[Chmera]

Exactly.

[Timballisto]

NetOp?  We use something called NetStar.  Heh.  Actually we found a way to use it against the teacher.  There's an option to chat with the teacher from your computer, and there's an option someone found that said 'send beep'.  It was probably less than ten seconds before the whole class was making the teacher's computer beep every 1/2 second.  Someone even found a hotkey so we could do it faster.  Not long after that though the teacher figured out how to disable chat  : ( .  It was really funny while it lasted though.

[Liebatron]

I just read the book 1984 and in doing so involuntarily made Timballisto read it, and what i've realised is that for these to have any good effect, there needs to be such a fine line drawn between illegality and social crimes, things that go against the normal way of doing things, that in the end they wouldn't be worth it.

Would it have gotten this far if we all weren't behaving like spoiled prats who think we're above the law?

I see your point, but I don't agree with all of it. These cameras affect the people who don't think they're above the law either. How many people have read 1984? I didn't think at first that anybody would actually mistake illegal things for unusual acts, but I realised towards the end of the book (when they explain how that happens, and how it all works) that I know several people who think exactly, precisely how big brother wants the people in 1984 to think! After I realised that, it dawned on me that it could happen that the cameras could easily be abused, and since you don't know who's behind the camera, you wouldn't be able to take any action on it at all. So basically, I might be wrong. I originally when I heard about this, thought that 1984 could never occur because nobody would agree with Big Brother's principles. Apparently, some do. A couple people I know are already well practised in double-think and use it on a daily basis to believe what they think is true. In the end, there usually isn't any evidence against what they say, except when I got stung by a bee because I tried to prove that principle wrong. I got stung by a wasp, but I did prove the principles of Ingsoc wrong. :embarassed:

[Isu]

With every passing day Gordon Brown is losing votes. :wink:

[Chmera]

I'm reading the book, 1984. Brilliant stuff. But seriously, ot scared me...

And Dumb Lem, how the zark does getting stung by a wasp/bee/whatever prove the principles of Ingsoc wrong? o.O

[Liebatron]

I'm reading the book, 1984. Brilliant stuff. But seriously, ot scared me...

And Dumb Lem, how the zark does getting stung by a wasp/bee/whatever prove the principles of Ingsoc wrong? o.O

Longstory made (sorta) short: friend says this: "if you don't think the wasp will sting you, it won't" then goes on to explain how he believes in this thing that he describes and says it's what he believes in. He also explained how he believed in things that made 'his own reality' as if what happened to me in my reality could differ from his even if we were standing right next to eachother(now that I've read the book 1984, I know that this is exactly the same as doublethink, what he described is the same anyways). I find many things VERY flawed about this method of thinking and prove him wrong by believing that the wasp wouldn't sting me if I didn't provoke it. I believed that, I've always believed that, I still believe that a wasp won't sting you if you don't provoke it, but did I get stung? YES!! OUCH!!!

Now that I think of it, Big Brother could use this anonymous friend of mine as a role model to the rest of the party members in 1984. I wonder if he (EDIT: the friend, I mean) sees anything wrong with putting talking cameras in.̆ :shocked:

I'm taking a survey that uses Socratic method to try to convince people that doublethink is a true thing, and that it can be used and stuff, basically, I tried to see if I could make the takers of the survey into orthodox party members for a bit. I did NOT think this would work, but as it turns out, I was able to convince my math teacher that if humans didn't exist, the past would not have happened. The only reason the principles of ingsoc are of concern to me in relation to what's going on in Middleborough is becuase I read an article. A few in fact, people in London were interviewed, and the questions were asked to find out one thing: how many people are already well versed in doublethink and believe in the principles of ingsoc unwittingly. Surprisingly many, a tad over half of the people interviewed from what I saw. again: :shocked:

If people can actually believe in something so nonsensical as doublethink, then I think it may actually be possible to create Oceania in the real world...spooky. personally, I don't think anything's going to arise from these cameras, in fact I think it's good for everyone to reread 1984 every once in awhile as long as the threat isn't serious, lest we should go the same way the Romans did militarily: ignorant due to long disuse of it.

One last thing: who's Gordon Brown? Sorry, i'm not really caught up on politics in England.

[Chmera]

You mean you HOPE nothing will become of the cameras? It's impossible to be entirely sure with these things...